“Show him in here, then?” The flunkey made obeisance, and withdrew. “What can Swinton want now? I have no business with him to-day; nor any more, for that matter, if I could conveniently get rid of him. Walked straight in without being asked! And wishes particularly to speak with me! Rather cool that!”
His lordship was not quite cool himself, while making the reflection. On the contrary, a sudden pallor had shown itself on his cheeks, with a whiteness around the lips, as when a man is under the influence of some secret apprehension.
“I wonder if the fellow has any suspicion—”
His lordship’s reflection was stayed by the entrance of the “fellow” himself.
Chapter Seventy Six.
A Modest Demand.
The aspect of his protégé, as he stepped inside the room, was anything but reassuring to the sexagenarian deceiver.
On the contrary, his pale cheeks became paler, his white lips whiter. There was something in the ex-guardsman’s eye and air that bespoke a man having a grievance!